Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/188

 162 article dear in proportion. She was orderedto be here on the 1st of February, but has not arrived yet. Fresh meat brings 1s. 10d. per pound; and yet in Ireland you often want a market for your pork. If you had taken my advice about shipping off a lot of it— Irish produce—pork, butter, cheese, and oatmeal is always sure of a market here.

I have to tell you that my house in Perth is finished: it cost me, including the grant, above 100l.; and would bring 20l. a year.

28th.—While sitting after tea with Mr. Tanner, last night, we heard firing from guns loaded with ball—for we have learned to distinguish very accurately.—An officer was with us; and as we set out to learn the cause, a soldier came up to inform him that the barrack was attacked by fifty natives: we hurried onwards and heard much noise, but saw no natives. They had retreated; and it is doubtful whether their advance had been with any hostile intention.

June 5th.—Worked in the garden transplanting turnips and sowing seeds. I have lost two young pigs, and have now only seventeen—one bull, three oxen, one heifer (soon to calve), and a goat. What would Robinson Crusoe have been without the latter?

I cut down several trees, and split rails for fencing-in a cattle-pen, twenty-eight feet square; with a thatched house, twenty-eight feet by ten